Economic concerns and growing disenchantment with both parties is draining support for Trump among Gen Z young men, a key bloc of support during the 2024 election
Male Gen Z voters are breaking with Donald Trump and the Republican party at large, recent polls show, less than a year after this same cohort defied convention and made a surprise shift right, helping Trump win the 2024 election.
Taken with wider polling suggesting Democrats will lead in the midterms, the findings on young men spell serious trouble for the Republican Party in 2026.
Younger Gen Z men, those born between 2002 and 2007, may be even more anti-Trump, according to October research from YouGov and the Young Men’s Research Project, a potential sign that their time living through the social upheavals of the Covid pandemic and not being political aware during the first Trump administration may be shaping their experience.
I’ll believe it when I see it.
Gen Z want a radical. Far left or far right doesn’t seem to matter. I can’t blame them for that. Most of them will still say they supported Bernie - at least the podcasters they worship do. There is room for them on the left. Dems have to start by leaving the centrist DNC bullshit behind.
they don’t want radical. they want jobs and a stabilized cost of living. they want to feel like they have a future.
trump focused on economic issues, and got their votes. if the next democrats can push forward economic reforms that improve the economy… they will get the votes. Kamala absolutely refused to run on any agenda of economic reform and endorse Biden’s inflation economy.
This was always true. I want someone who works for the working man and woman. I don’t care if we become socialist, stay in capitalism, what the fuck ever other choice: we as people need to feel taken care of. Any system that ignores its people is doomed.
Just as important is explaining to people why some choices need to be made that we may not agree with. Raising the gas tax? I’m ok with it, because I already know it’s how we pay for our roads. But what about my less aware neighbor? If they simply see the rate jump, and don’t know why, it leaves the door wide open for a conspiracy schmuck to step in with a ragebait explanation.
Yeah, but you’re being reasonable. Most human beings aren’t reasonable. They are not thoughtful or pragmatic. Only a small percentage of people are well-mannered and educated enough to even understand the basics of macroeconomics and public policy that often drives it.
They are driven by raw emotion that is often entirely disproportionate to the thing it’s responding to. Like your example of someone flying into a rage over a minor tax increase. And now in 2025+, these people think they are all geniuses due to a steady diet of social media that constantly reinforces their ignorant and rage. And they block and assault anyone who dares try to dispute their rage and ignorance.
I was in thread about credit ratings yesterday and all the smart factually accurate commentary was down-voted, and all the ragebaiting ignorance conspiracy nonsense was heavily upvoted.
Sure, but at least reminding people of why at the time leadership announces a change removes a lot of ambiguity.
Definitely doesn’t solve the problem by itself, but it’s not much work to include… Presuming the law/change in question was written with a real reason in mind.
I think GenZ might just be stupid if they thought Trump had a more economic reform agenda than Harris. But yeah blame Harris for that too.
trump ran on economic issues. they weren’t stupid. they listened to what he said. they just didn’t think he was lying.
‘no tax on tips’ was resonated with a lot of young service workers. he kept hammering home how he’d stop inflation, etc.
Fair enough. You are right that “ran on” and actual policy are two different things. Pretty clear that Harris fumbled her economic messaging when it comes to what GenZ were wanting to hear I guess.
How very timely.
Anti-Trump doesn’t mean pro-democrat.
Uhm, no thanks. MAGA are too stupid to become liberals. They don’t deserve forgiveness for what they’ve done to the country.
You don’t need to forgive anyone. We just need them to be informed and not stuck in a swamp of propaganda.
Lol until they find the next bandwagon to hop on that happens to hurt and kill other people.
So you WANT them to kill people ? Yikes
My sister (F 22) voted for Trump over taxes, Haitian and Venezuelan immigrants. She is 1st gen, born of 2 immigrants who also voted for Trump. Every time I present new evidence of how bad Trump is, she pulls ChatGPT and “debunks my lies” with nicely crafted confirmation bias prompts. If you all know how to get through to GenZers, I am listening.
Have you considered debunking her with nicely crafted confirmation bias prompts. It could also show her that chatGPT can be wrong?
my dude, you have a sister who is going to chatgpt for facts, Id feel that she’s in a lot more trouble than being a trump supporter.
You can’t help morons unfortunately.
My father is Gen 1 of immigrant parents. His parents HATED Trump. Yet he voted for Trump all three times.
I have a GenZ sister-in-law that uses ChatGPT for relationship advice. Like copies and pastes responses from men into ChatGPT and asks what they’re “really saying” or “what their intentions are”, instead of you know, JUST ASKING THE PERSON OUTRIGHT.
We’re fucked
tell your sister that she’s a fucking dumbass for thinking a chatbot is a source, tell her that all a chatbot does is aggregate data on the internet, and that if she doesn’t smarten the fuck up then she’s going to be a failed unhappy outcast in life that is hated by successful people and shunned by her family
have the AI cite it sources for the claims it makes, and read through those sources. ask the AI what information it used in the source to come up with its statement.
using chatGPT in this way is like how I used Wikipedia growing up: just pull up an article on something, check out what citations an article had, and walk it backwards from there
When searching something online, I already many times came across AI written articles being quite high. So now it’s possible LLM will just cite another LLM which got its content from an LLM written response on Reddit.
Does the paid chat gpt actually cite?
The free one (which most people are using), when asked how much an aircraft carrier costs just links to the main page of CNBC and the department of defense.
I further prompted and it gave me 404s
It does a mix of hallucination and self-correction once you tell it to search the web to actually find out current information. And even then, you don’t have a good chance of having truly accurate information. It really does take work.
not sure if only the paid gpt actually cites, but anyone thats trying to show someone else how inefficient LLMs are with data should be able to come to the conclusion the output is untrustworthy if you’re getting 404 errors after asking to cite, in my opinion
The problem is it “cites” things by inserting obscured hyperlinks that people see and never click but assume there is a “source”
I guess we found the answer to how the original person i was replying to can validate anything thats generated by an LLM: looking up sources that an LLM claims to use
Any 22 year old who’s upset about taxes is very very clearly being manipulated
Everyone should be upset how this country has lies to its citizens for decades on the premise of it can’t “afford” free healthcare and education. It is not a generational problem, but a societal one.
Yet half this country joyfully would wallow in their own shit if it means their neighbor suffers just the same as they are.
Considering the lack of value we’re getting in return for these taxes, nah I’m pretty sure everybody should be upset about taxes. Other, better countries may pay more in taxes, but after accounting for the healthcare and worker rights that the taxes get them, they end up with more time and more money than most Americans.
I met a local politician who, in my red area, just seemed like he was dancing around labeling himself a Democrat. The office was for basically money management in the area, and he was talking about optimizing the use of tax funds. I made it clear that I don’t really mind paying this tax rate, and I would even pay more, but only if it starts getting used on shit that matters like building another school because ours are getting overcrowded, and the area is growing whether we prepare or not. I said that even if I only cared about my own finances, that’s an investment that supports growth which would raise my property value, and it would attract new businesses to serve that growing population. Just plan for it so that it doesn’t grow out of control and become a shit hole with stupid intersection infrastructure and urban sprawl.
We need to stop electing Republicans - the people who siphon away and steal our tax dollars
I kinda hate the premise that young age automatically makes you stupid or your opinions a result of manipulation. Someone in their 60s can be just as stupid as a 22yo, and a 22yo is also capable of having nuanced thoughts about politics and taxation. “Young=naive” is a bad trap to fall into when evaluating political opinions and feeds into the old adage about people becoming conservative as they get older.
I think this person is just stupid on their own, regardless of their age.
My friend, when I was 22 I didn’t make enough to pay taxes. You’re getting downvoted because you’re defensive, aggro, and misunderstanding the premise.
Very few people on Lemmy believe you’re actually stupid because you’re young. Often times just uninformed and, per your example, impulsive. “Young=naive” tends to be a regressive position. I think you’ll find Lemmy is typically a progressive website. Most of us left reddit over ideological/enshitification differences not because we were too radically right. .ml is among the exceptions.
Anyway the premise isn’t 22 year olds are too dumb to worry about taxes.
Instead the premise is that you’re too poor to worry about taxes. That’s not to say you can’t or shouldn’t but you likely won’t have anything worth taxing at that age. If you do have things worth taxing that young you either have inherited well, I’m sorry for your loss, or you are offspring of the 1%-0.0001% and were born with a silver spoon. Otherwise you’re the lowest on the totem pole and it’s been proven throughout the millennials growing up that you’re not going to get ahead if the status quo remains as it is. In theory you should be looking for the most radical change because you’ll see the greatest benefit over your lifetime.
Anyway my friend, chill, touch grass and have a lovely day.
And when it comes time to worry about taxes worth less about how much you’re paying and instead what you’re getting out of it. Paying taxes is pretty sweet when you get stuff in return like healthcare, schools, parks, places to get out and do things that don’t cost money, transit investment, bridges that don’t fall down. Taxes only such when you can’t see the impact it has in your life…like this moment in history right now where the rich own the government and want more money from us to improve their lives.
I think this is a more nuanced take on the situation. I would agree that folks who are directly impacted by an issue are more likely to be impacted by it. Original comment seemed too absolutist too me.
I think there are 22yo who can be impacted by the issue of taxes while being poor (Though they may end up on the other side of the argument). For example, issues of food stamps and medicare-for-all affect all ages. A 22yo might have a strong opinion in favor of taxation for these purposes. A conservative making an ad hominem argument on the basis of age in this case (e.g., that they are simply being manipulated by the radical left) would be clearly incorrect.
I also think, as more of a moral argument, you shouldn’t need to be directly impacted by something in order to support/oppose it. I am not on food stamps but I absolutely think we should have them (or perhaps “upgrade” it to UBI to avoid nonsense on what poor people are allowed to buy).
In any case, dismissing someone as simply being manipulated is not a good approach in general. It could be a good approach when we are specifically talking about the person overselling on confirmation bias from ChatGPT, but it is a poor way to change minds as a general tactic.
Is there any particular language I should adjust to avoid being “aggro”? I did say that I hated their argument. And I did call them hostile after their last sarcastic response to me trying to extend an olive branch.
Is that going too far? “Touch grass” is about the same level, I would think, but I’ve been wrong before and I’ll be wrong again.
There was no premise of anyone is stupid or not - I simply mean that early twenties voters are by and large concerned with social issues since they very likely don’t ow property yet. So to me, this feels like Faux russian news leading kids around with a hate carrot on a fascism stick
I suppose I did simplify your argument.
I’ll restate, then: it’s erroneous to say that any young person/22yo with a strong opinion on taxes is being manipulated. Although life experience may prevent naivete in some cases, I think it’s incorrect to make a bold assertion like that because older folks are capable of being manipulated and younger folks are capable of being discerning and having the critical thinking skills to avoid manipulation.
I would also take issue with your follow up on whether owning property impacts whether or not someone’s opinions on economic issues are well defined. I don’t think people need to be personally invested in an issue to have a nuanced opinion on it, though it can certainly help (and you definitely want to consider interested parties when it comes to property tax- i.e., before a city raises property taxes, they should take into consideration property owners with fixed incomes, who do tend to be 60+)
I get that you were just making a short comment and didn’t intend to go deep into the weeds on it, but I find these kinds of assumptions dangerous.
You did simplify, correct. I wouldn’t call it an accurate simplification, either. Thanks for clarifying that your assumption was out of turn
If you enter into debates with weak ad hominem arguments about someone’s age, you aren’t going to change minds and you will be steamrolled by anyone with an understanding of the topic.
Skimming your recent posts, I don’t think our political views are particularly different, so it’s in both of our interests if you are using the best arguments possible on these topics. This was not an attack on you as a person, so your hostile response is unnecessary.
Or is financially independent. Are you assuming this Trump supporter is in college?
What does she actually know about?
Doesn’t matter what it is, literally any topic that she knows about, even if it’s the Kardashians.
One day ask her a question about it, then ask whatever chatbot she trusts, if they’re not the same, tell her she’s wrong and if she doesn’t believe you to ask her AI.
A big reason people think AI is smart, is they never ask it about something they know.
That sounds basic, but it means they never notice when any of their questions get a wrong answer.
Getting them to ask it about topics they know about, means they get to see how it can fail, and how a small initial error it makes can be extrapolated to the point everything else is bullshit.
Once they learn it’s not always right, they’re less likely to blindly trust it. That leads to them double checking some things, seeing it’s bullshitting more, and then double checking it more.
You need to replace the AI feedback loop with the rage loop. It ain’t hard to get a conservative there, get them to the point they’re asking chatbots questions they already know the answer too, just to see it get it wrong.
Ethics aside, if we don’t manipulate the idiots, someone else is going to do it.
Best one I’ve found recently was the top article on DDG search for “peacock mantis shrimp cleanup crew”.
The Peacock Mantis Shrimp is a valued clean‑up‑crew addition sold in‑store here in Columbus, Ohio. It acts as a scavenger and algae picker, keeps substrate clean, helping reduce maintenance and improve water quality. Stock 1–2 per 5 gal in a balanced reef or fish‑only system for best results. Difficulty: Easy. Offer varied empty shells. Drip‑acclimate and maintain stable salinity for long‑term health.
There are so many problems with this but I’ll start with the one that made me search for a cleanup crew for a mantis shrimp:
- they are aggressive and deadly to just about anything other than some damselfish
- minimun tank size is 20 gallons, putting one in a 5 gallon would be terrible for everyone and stoclong 1-2 per 5 gallons would be a bloodbath
- they are not scavengers or detrivores and do not eat algae
- they do not clean the substrate other than to kick it all over the place when making a burrow
Ask her to read the links from her ChatGPT queries with you. Do it together. Show her how ChatGPT is confidently and convincingly lying to her. And each time she comes back with another result from a biased prompt, do it again. Eventually she’ll at least stop trying to convince you that ChatGPT knows all, out of embarrassment.
born of 2 immigrants who also voted for Trump
Ho boy, I wonder how they’re feeling now with ICE running wild.
No problem. According to their bubble, that only happens to the bad people that didn’t follow the rules. Every single one deserved it in their view.
I’ve spoken to Trump supporters who are themselves illegal immigrants (overstayed visa). They don’t see the problem.
From another who has 1st gen relatives who literally entered illegally and who also voted Trump, the following are some reasons in no particular order. They fully believed he would only deport “the bad ones.” They STILL voted for him despite one part of the family who is still not fully citizens.
They still don’t believe non-criminals are being kidnapped, they still think he’s a good businessman, and still think he’s a great president.
The propaganda power of “reality” television is quite strong, apparently.
Or when they start trying to denaturalize everyone not sufficiently white based on quotas set by that dickhead Stephen Miller…
Ask what it would take to convince her.
She will probably require something which is just not practically possible.
If her assertion is not falsifiable, then its based on faith. You can’t argue with that.
This is a bit disingenuous. Convincing me that Trump is not an idiot would also require something that is not practically possible (namely him not being a total imbecile).
I think it’s implied to ask for what it would take to convince you if it were true. If you witnessed trump in a non prepared debate making salient points, clever logic and such, you figure he wasn’t actually an idiot, right?
You have two choices:
Put her down or call ICE.
The former is more humane, but the latter would be a lot funnier.
But seriously, I would just disconnect, or at most, I would ask her to have the chatbot provides sources and then ask her to pull them up.
If her learning that it’s making up sources doesn’t get through to her, I wouldn’t try anymore. Just accept that she’s either going to have to come through it on her own, or she’ll just progressively get worse and worse, and you’ll have to decide if you want to stick around for that, I wouldn’t.
Ah yes, call ICE on the immigrants “wokely”
Call ICE on her.
/s
I’d love to pretend I have a tried and true method, but statistically I’ve hit more walls than bridges. The thing that works more often than others is finding something they care about that’s easily falsifiable and honing in on that. Do that a few times in a row and hopefully they see that they don’t actually know what they’re talking about because their politicians don’t want them to. One of the easiest for me has been to really explain the gun show loophole. Guns seem to be pretty important to people I interact with, even if they don’t own any. They really have no idea what gun laws are. One of the other more recent things is Hegseths changes and the Trump ballroom. Depending on how tech bro they are and how willing or able you are to keep them on topic, DOGE isn’t too bad, but it can get off track fast. If she’s spiteful, the new Trump accounts might be worth bringing up. It’s really not a bad idea, but that’s HER taxes going to a bunch of babies.
Ghost her, go no contact, on moral grounds.
Sorry, you support a criminal fascist pedophile warmonger.
Thats bad.
You’re bad.
Bye!
… Its really not that complicated.
You can make it complicated and go into ostracization as a means of effectint social change, of cutting someone off being a very costly form of socially signalling how serious you are about this…
But its really not that complicated.
Who cares.
They will change their minds again.
Vote.
Pretty much this. Anyone dumb enough to fall for this shit once, will fall for it again.
I was repulican christian in highschool, when Trump got elected and my church went MAGA, I started to ask a lot more questions. The scariest part about becoming woke is learning how much deception we’re constantly fed and taking the step to say enough is enough.
People might be stupid, but they’re mostly ignorant.
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It’s still crazy how many people want to write them off as lost causes already.
Those little idiots are going to be voting for decades, it’s insane to stop trying to bring them around.
I genuinely can’t fathom how folks mad at gen Z voters don’t understand that their anger toward gen Z voters was equally manufactured as those gen Z voters support for Trump was.
How fucking stupid.
Its all fucking stupid. Kids were memed into voting for a felon for president because the kids were stupid.
The kids were stupid because the schools are underfunded and the parents are overworked trying to keep a roof over their heads. All as a result of Republican policy (but they’d never tell you that).
Millennials at least had parents that were doing decent on 1-2 full-time jobs. Those who had all their parents working were latchkey kids before the social-media era.
So now, we have a generation of kids, who are now adults, who got a shit education and no critical reasoning skills at all. They were raised by screens and babysat by Zuckerberg.
Now they are idolizing the absolute worst people on the world. Between the constant dopamine drip from short-form videos and social media, the shit education (and the online finishing school thanks to COVID), and being raised by gen X and the early millennials…who are somewhat naive to how much the world has actually changed since their childhoods while also being pissed off about being fucked by boomers.
What’s really scary is how the fuck we recover from that. It’s basically brainwashing on a generational level. An entire generation largely made up of thoughtless drones that puppet whatever they read from the biggest/wealthiest pop-star and/or chauvinist cumstains on the internet.
And now, basically all of the legacy media (even the local news) is owned by the same clique of shitty billionaires, riding on Trump’s cock hoping to feel Putin’s thrusts.
We are beyond fucked, my friend.
Meh.
I 100% get being mad at really any random voting demographic.
Like, pick a group. I got a bone to pick with them.
My issue is people who fall for the oligarchs propaganda that want us to fight along their carefully manufactured battle lines instead uniting against the oligarchs like we need to.
It’s why I’m such a broken record about wealth inequality. It’s the one thing that resonates with over 99% of Americans, it’s the obvious choice to use to unite the people against the oligarchs, and why they constantly have to manufacture other shit.
We solve that, and no one’s pushing all the other shit as distractions, so it solves most of our issues at once.
4 years under a progressive with support of the House and Senate and we wouldn’t even recognize America, and I mean that in a good way.
I still say ‘Fuck you’ to them because they got us into this mess. Voting has its consequences and we’re suffering for it, because of their indecisive, easily manipulative and delusional minds.
There’s just no excuse to ‘not being politically aware’ when you always will have ample time to research about the candidates. You can’t just fucking go into the voting booths and just fill in the boxes of the candidates based on your party alignment then come out after voting being all like “I wasn’t politically aware” when they see the damage being done. But that’s what they did, that’s what majority of those 70+ million idiots did.
This isn’t like voting for some prom queen or prom king shit, welcome to the real world, morons. You fucked us over.
Ah yes, the Hillary Clinton strategy…
You’re aware these people will be voting for another ~50 years right?
They’re idiot kids who were taken advantage of, and you want to drive them to the right, by acting like someone on the right?
If you want to help, maybe you should become a Republican and chase people away from that party?
If you don’t want the R by your name to help the left, I don’t understand why you’re literally and significantly helping the right in that very comment
Do you just not under the ramifications of advocating for chasing teenagers away from the Dem party for life because of one vote?
I mean, we just got Hillary, Biden, and Kamala shoved down our throats. Lots of people who didn’t vote for any of those three can still be dependable lifelong Dem voters moving forward
We just have to stop shoving uncharismatic conservatives down their throats because “it’s the only other option”.
Finally someone smart.
Not only did they not research anyone before going into the voting booth, they weren’t involved in any step of the process. If they’re so mad about stuff why aren’t they doing the groundwork or even participating in primaries?
The last real Democratic Party primary was in 2020.
Most of the people we are talking about were literally too young to participate in a meaningful primary.
They had no opportunity to be involved in the process, and now they are being blamed for not participating. That’s the modern Democratic Party in a nutshell.
2020 was barely a primary tho. Between COVID being a brand new thing and half the candidates throwing in the towel on Super Tuesday, it shouldn’t count.
The last real Democratic Party primary was in 2020.
The last fair primary was the one before Jimmy Carter…
08 Obama won an unfair primary, but just because he managed to pull it off doesn’t retroactively make it fair.
2020 Biden was doing poorly until SC, got his only good performance, and then like a day before super Tuesday everyone except Biden and Bernie dropped, they all started campaigning for Biden. And then the DNC said that was a mandate for Biden and started pushing Bernie to also bow out.
It might not have been an outright fix, but it was more than a finger on the scale and sure as shit wasn’t fair.
I have high hopes the next one will show everyone what a legitimately unbiased primary looks like.
Yea Bernie was robbed, the DNC worked hard to sabotage his candidacy every step of the way. If Bernie got a fair shot, we would never have to utter the words “President Trump”.
But what about the Obama 08 primary was rigged?
I think candidate Obama was a amazing liar- he lied about ending the wars and punishing the war criminals, he lied about immigration reform, he lied about healthcare reform, he lied about closing the torture prison at Guantanamo, etc etc. It’s easy to blame Republican opposition, but Obama gave up on most of these major promises without a fight.
A lying politician is normal though. What makes it rigged?
“unfair” does not mean “rigged”…
Ok then, what made it unfair?
Screeching at people who didn’t vote for the incumbent party running a k-shaped economy and funding a genocide isn’t going to get you anywhere. You can’t run on “oh this guy is so bad” if you spent 4 whole years doing nothing about the guy who is so bad and expect to win, especially if you start racing him to the bottom on immigration and foreign policy.
Those type of people will never explain why we can’t just run a charismatic candidate with a popular policy platform…
